A Short History of the Kiss in India

On Sunday, on a busy street in the southern state of Kerala, a protest spurred by alleged harassment from hardline Hindus will see couples gather to do something Indians very rarely do in public: kiss.

Thousands, through an event organized via Facebook, say they will pucker up for what organizers describe as a protest against those who say that public displays of affection go against Indian culture.

Although no one can say for certain where kissing comes from, some researchers who have looked at its origin and spread, trace it back to India.

The earliest reference to kissing-like behavior comes from the Vedas, Sanskrit scriptures that informed Hinduism, Buddhism and the Jain religion, around 3,500 years ago, according to Vaughn Bryant, an anthropologist at Texas A&M University who specializes in the history of the kiss.

Further proof that India was the birthplace of the kiss, Mr. Bryant said, is the origin of the word itself. He points out that in ancient India, "busa" or "bosa" were used to refer to kissing and from these early words, the Latin term for kiss "basium" and the Old English words "ba" and "buss" are derived. Meanwhile, the root of the English word we use today - "kiss" - stems from "kus" which was used in northern India.

Why then is India, which also gave the world the Kama Sutra, the ancient sex guide which details various types of kisses, so averse to public displays of affection today? Even handholding between men and women in public is rare.

Ira Trivedi, author of "India in Love: Marriage and Sexuality in the 21st Century", says it's partly because of the Manusmriti, an ancient social Hindu code of conduct likely compiled over centuries that includes definitions on eight forms of marriage.

It includes the "rite of the rakshasa", in which a man forcibly abducts a woman, and the "rite of the rishis", in which a father gives away his daughter in exchange for something of value.

"With this, we began going down a more oppressive road... leading to tighter control on sexuality too" that still has reverberations in modern-day India, she said.

Hinduism, the religion of roughly 80% of India's 1.2 billion population, has also always emphasized celibacy. Some of the most revered figures in India, including Mahatma Gandhi practiced celibacy for at least part of their lives, as did Swami Vivekananda, the man who introduced yoga to the western world, said Charu Gupta, an associate professor at the University of Delhi's Department of History.

"So intimacy is seen as very much part of the private sphere, and even there it is meant for procreation and not pleasure," Ms. Gupta said.

Over the past century, cinema has played a key role in breaking down barriers in terms of sexual expression in India.

The 1929 silent film "A Throw of Dice" contained Indian cinema's first on-screen kiss and four years later in "Karma", actress Devika Rani locked lips with actor Himanshu Rai, who was her husband in real life, in an encounter that lasts for four minutes. (Here's a snippet of it)

By the 1950s, however, kissing scenes dried up after they were discouraged by Indian film censors. This led moviemakers to cut to scenes of snowy mountain peaks or colourful meadows seconds before the lips of on-screen lovers met.

Things began to loosen up again in the 1990s and today, lip-locking has returned to Bollywood where it is commonplace, as India continues to experience huge social change as the tide of globalisation and urbanization rises. But in the real world, film stars continue to be criticized if they don't abide by India's unwritten rules against open intimacy.

The incident resulted in countrywide protests in which demonstrators burnt effigies of the stars and shouted slogans calling for the death of Ms. Shetty.

And this wasn't the first time a kiss involving a visiting foreigner riled the Indian public. In 1980, tempers flared when then aspiring Bollywood actress Padmini Kolhapure gave Prince Charles a peck on the cheek, and again in 1993, when a kiss was exchanged between Nelson Mandela and actress Shabana Azmi.

Politicians have also been embroiled in smooching scandals. In 2006, during her first term as Rajasthan’s chief minister, Vasundhara Raje, eschewed the Indian politician's greeting of choice - the namaste gesture that involves a gentle bow while pressing the hands together close to the chest—and instead air-kissed Kiran Majumdar Shaw, Biocon's billionaire founder, at a World Economic Forum event in Delhi.

For Sunday's kissathon, the Kerala High Court, after hearing a petition on Friday filed by two students seeking to stop the protest, said it would not intervene in the matter, effectively allowing it to go ahead.

Author Ms. Trivedi thinks that slowly, attitudes are changing in India and protests like the one in Kerala show that the country is undergoing a sexual revolution.

Bollywood has finally accepted the kiss, Ms. Trivedi said. “The next step is for it to become acceptable on the streets.”

Atish Patel is a multimedia journalist based in Delhi. You can follow him on Twitter@atishpatel.